Car thieves who used sophisticated gadgets arrested

Since they carried the jamming device with them at all times, it made it difficult for us to put them under esurveillance.

ROMIL BAANIYA, DCP (southeast)

NEW DELHI: Two alleged vehicle thieves who used sophisticated gadgets like mobile phone signal jammers to shield themselves from cops have been arrested, police said on Saturday.

The two accused were allegedly part of an interstate cartel that deployed the use of latest technology to break into cars before stealing them.

“These car thieves always carried a mobile phone signal jammer with them. It helped them dodge enforcement agencies during the thefts or while trying to dispose of the stolen vehicles,” said Romil Baaniya, DCP (southeast).

The portable jammer that they had purchased online was also effective while they were fleeing with the stolen vehicles as the jammer neutralised the signal of any tracker device concealed inside the vehicle.

“Since the thieves carried the jamming device with them at all times, it also made it difficult for us to put them under electronic surveillance,” said the DCP.

The two alleged thieves have been identified as Subodh Yadav and Vipin Kumar. Yadav was allegedly found involved in more than 20 criminal cases, including murder, carjacking and uprooting and robbing an entire ATM, Baaniya said.

The other suspect, Kumar, too, had been booked in another murder case in 2011 and the Chandigarh Police had once recovered 26 high-end cars from him, the officer said. Apart from the phone jammer and other gadgets, the police have also recovered six stolen cars.

“To steal cars without raising an alarm, this cartel would use an advanced software that could disable the security system of the vehicle. They could also feed the car’s engine control module (ECM) data into their devices which would let them prepare duplicate keys to steal these cars,” the DCP said.